My Plantcentric Journey

Posts tagged ‘gmo labeling’

I remember it like it was yesterday. Last Christmas, after a substantial weight loss journey for both of us, I surprised my husband with
Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., MD’s Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, Rip Esselstyn’s The Engine 2 Diet, Julieanna Hever, M.S., R.D., CPT The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition, The Forks Over Knives Companion Book, and Kathy Hester’s The Vegan Slow Cooker. After reading Dr. Esselstyn’s & Rip Esselstyn’s books, my husband, Bill, turned to me and said, “I’m going vegan. You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but I am. I’m starting now.” I about choked! We had just “come out” as vegetarian, but this was different. This was really radical. Go without cheese?? And ice cream and pudding? I shakily said, “OK. If you are, I am too.” Gulp!

Then, we watched Dr. Robert Lustig’s The Bitter Truth About Sugar

We had already been following the Rule of 5 from You on a Diet by Michael F. Roizen, MD and Mehmet C. Oz, MD, one of which was no high fructose corn syrup, but now we cut out any kind of added sugar.

We are also learning about GMO’s and trying to cut them out of our diet. Pretty hard when there is currently no labeling. We definitely are supporting legislation to have all food that has GMO’s in them to be labeled.
What a great year it’s been. It hasn’t been hard. We just armed ourselves with knowlege about the effects of dairy and used vegan cookbooks. We discovered great new flavors, spices and ways of cooking. No meat, no dairy, no added oil and no added sugar. Our palates have really grown.

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Now that Prop 37 has failed in California, and there currently is no state forcing Big Food to label which food products contain GMOs, it looks like we consumers are going to have to make intelligent guesses and vote with our wallets until we can get something passed.

Get educated. Educate others. There is a lot of info on this blog, and I will continue putting on more and showing you the sites where I got them so that you can visit them yourself.

Please feel free to share these posts. My intention is to bring together the most relevant information on nutrition and health from all different sources, kind of like Huffington Post or Drudge Report. Laura

Stacy Finz

A product labeled with Non Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) is sold at the Lassens Natural Foods & Vitamins store in Los Feliz district of Los Angeles Friday, Oct. 5, 2012. International food and chemical conglomerates are spending millions to defeat California’s Proposition 37, which would require labeling on all food made with altered genetic material. It also would prohibit labeling or advertising such food as “natural.” (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) Photo: Damian Dovarganes, Associated Press / SF

More than 350 top chefs this week came out in favor of Proposition 37, the initiative that calls for labeling most foods containing genetically engineered ingredients, saying there is an “enormous stake in ensuring transparency in our food system.”

“As chefs, we are on the frontlines of feeding America,” the petition said. “It is our duty to nourish our guests, both in body and soul. However, we can’t prepare the best food we know how when information about the ingredients we purchase is hidden from us with labels that are missing basic facts.”

Opponents – scientists, food companies and agribusiness – of the November ballot measure argue that genetically modified foods have been deemed safe by the United States Food and Drug Administration and that having to label them creates a stigma that simply doesn’t exist.

They also argue that it will cost households as much as $400 more in grocery bills annually because manufacturers will have to pass on the cost of having special labels just in California, or for having to use more expensive, non-genetically modified ingredients.

In addition, they argue that the measure would expose grocery retailers, food companies and farmers to frivolous lawsuits.

Even though the initiative would not require restaurants to divulge whether the food it serves has been genetically modified, the chefs said the legislation will at least allow them to knowingly source foods without genetically modified ingredients.

“Since restaurants are conveniently exempt from requirements in Prop. 37, these chefs wouldn’t be exposed to the shakedown lawsuits that will hit other small businesses like small grocery retailers and family farmers,” said Kathy Fairbanks, a spokeswoman for the “No on Prop. 37” campaign.

Proponents are concerned that the long-term health impacts of crops that have been genetically altered in the laboratory are unclear.

For non-packaged food such as produce, supermarkets and grocery stores would have to post signs. Nearly 70 to 80 percent of processed foods are made with genetically engineered ingredients, including corn, sugar beets, soybeans and cotton oil.

If the proposition passes, California would be the first state in the nation to require labels on most genetically modified food products. At least 18 states, including California, have tried to pass similar laws through their legislatures and failed.

“Fifty countries around the world – representing more than 40 percent of the world’s population – already require GMO labeling,” according to the chefs’ collaborative petition. “We are adding our collective voices to this movement.”